


Falling (Literally) For You

by AKAuthor



Series: Mine [3]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Domestic Rickyl, Happy Daryl, M/M, Romantic Soulmates, happy rick, incidental maiming of a cat, not graphic, not sad I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5159942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKAuthor/pseuds/AKAuthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU. When you first see your soulmate, something of a disaster happens. Rick falls and Daryl accidentally shoots the neighbour's cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling (Literally) For You

**Author's Note:**

> I'm less pleased with this one, but it's still quite cute. Let me know if you have any requests for a soulmate AU!

The world is an amusing place. Despite everything wrong with the planet, there was always going to be a constant source of amusement and laughter.

Soulmates.

Upon seeing your soulmate for the first time disaster will always strike. There are television shows dedicated to people finding their soulmates, enough videos on Youtube to entertain you until death and long after. Heads stuck in fences. Clothes torn off. Hot coffee spilled everywhere. Valuables dropped.

Soulmate insurance was a very real thing. For an understandable reason, people were very cautious about meeting the love of their life, simply because the earth found a way of (usually painfully) inflicting something similar to a minor disaster on all parties involved. There was always an interesting case in local ERs.

 

Rick’s parents knew they were meant for each other when they respectively fell ten feet out of a tree and dropped a large can of paint on their toes. Love at first disaster. Ignoring four blue toes and a possible fractured arm, the pair made for the closest coffee shop and didn’t leave each other’s side for four hours after meeting. Mr and Mrs Grimes were always very fond of repeating their meeting, to anybody who would listen. In fact, they even spent their tenth anniversary having a picnic under the fateful tree, in full view of the garage that used to house large tins of paint.

Daryl’s mum never told her sons how she met her father, or whether he was actually her soulmate, but Merle, on the other hand, had met a pretty young woman from Alaska outside a bar one evening. When the word ‘met’ is used, it is rather loosely, as Merle had turned around, walked face first into a brick wall, and cracked open his face. The pretty woman laughed so hard she tripped in a large pothole and flashed most of the empty night street. Daryl wouldn’t admit it, but he cried manly tears of laughter, in the bloodied face of his brother and his blushing now-bride.

Merle and Alice were very happy together, and had just left for Alaska the day Daryl was walking through suburbia. The twenty-five year old was headed back to where he parked his truck, having walked through a small forest and into a decently small town about ten minutes from the outskirts of Atlanta. The day was intended to be spent hunting, but he’d gotten distracted and followed the woods out to the modern suburbia, where Daryl, who would always deny it, became curious and nosy.

 

All the houses in this area were white picket, wood panelled, with pretty gardens and fresh paint jobs. Daryl looked well out of place in his holey jeans, with his crossbow slung over his shoulder. Many children playing with balls were tackled by their peers because they stopped to stare at the Dixon, and many wary eyes glared from kitchen windows.

 

Under the hot glare of the sun, Rick wiped his hair off his forehead and continued clearing the gutter of the few leaves his mother was fretting about. She was inside making lemonade and watching Oprah, sheltering from the sun with the added benefit of a blasting air conditioner. Rick pawed another handful of muck from the guttering, sweat creeping down his back and sticking his shirt to him uncomfortably. The next-door neighbour’s kids shrieked, flinging a punctured football around the backyard, their dog yipping and bouncing around their legs, while their grumpy tomcat who continually jumped the fence to dig up Rick’s mothers azaleas prowled the driveway. Hearing a distraction, Rick craned his head around and found a scruffy stranger, on the path outside his mother’s house.

Daryl stopped to pull his crossbow off his shoulder and unstick his shirt from his back. Holding the crossbow loosely, and reaching back over his shoulder to grip at his shirt, Daryl paid no attention to the young man on the ladder, who eyed him with interest, a handful of brown, mushy leaves clutched at his side.

When the sensation of being watched didn’t go away after a moment, Daryl looked up and locked eyes with Rick. Rick’s mother wished she had a camera, as she watched from the kitchen window.

Rick toppled from the ladder, plummeting a good ten feet to the ground, handful of leaves forgotten, as they drifted down around him. Daryl, in the moment of Rick falling, had squeezed his crossbow and evidently forgotten to put the safety on, as the next-door neighbour’s cat let out a hellish screech as an arrow targeted it’s thigh.

Slow seconds passed, and then Daryl was leaning over Rick, a wondrous look over his face at finding Rick, and marginal guilt for maiming Mr Paws. Rick refused to let his eyes wander from Daryl’s face, tan and hard-angled, with scruff, a small beauty spot over his lip, and brilliant dusty sky eyes. He wasn’t sure if the tight feeling in his chest was amazement and affection, or damage and bruising due to falling from the height of the roof.

 

“Uh- ah-,” Daryl stumbled over his words at the realisation of finding his soulmate. Rick licked his lips as a woman rushed out of the house behind them, a camera held in one hand and the other wiping tears from her eyes.

“Rick! Oh my Ricky! You’ve found your soulmate! Just like your father, falling off of things,” she happily sobbed, camera clicking wildly. “Just wait until I tell your father! He’ll be so proud!” Mrs Grimes continued on, oblivious to the deeply blushing Daryl who was attempting to drag his eyes from Rick’s face, and her son dazedly staring up at his soulmate.

Pulling her son up off the grass, Mrs Grimes had the thought to ask Daryl for his name, having never seen the young man.

“Daryl Dixon, ma’am,” he told her, eyes trained on Rick’s clear blues. Rick smiled.

“Nice to meet you, Daryl. I’m Rick, and I appear to have fallen for you.”

“I’m, ah, sorry about the cat,” Daryl muttered, rubbing the back of his head, Rick’s eyes tracing the movement lazily. Mrs Grimes laughed, tears thickening the sound.

“I never liked that cat. Always tearing up my garden,” she patted her sons head and stood up. “I’m going to call your father, Rick, he’ll be so happy.”

 

 

Years later, and Rick stood on a ladder, fishing leaves out of the gutter while Daryl stood on the lawn behind him, their dog, Judith happily wagging her tail so hard her entire rear end moved next to him.

“Doesn’t this bring back memories?” Daryl smirked, calling up to Rick.

“I’ve fallen for you once and I’ll do it again, don’t tempt fate,” Rick answered, throwing a handful of leaves down onto the ground. Daryl chuckled, and took a sip of his lemonade.

“As much as I enjoy you falling for me, I don’t want a trip to the ER on a Saturday afternoon, so hold off on the falling.”

“Did you fall for me, Daryl?” Rick asked, grinning.

“Naw, I shot a cat for you. Remember?”

“It was the single most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Rick promised, climbing down the ladder to claim a kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”


End file.
